Why Smart’s Opensignal wins is a bigger deal than you think

Smart being awarded by Opensignal during MWC 2024 for 5G Download Speed, 5G Upload Speed, 5G Coverage Experience, 5G Availability, and Overall Download Speed Experience.

With more 5G phones slated to be released in the next few months, it’s worth talking about the biggest, misunderstood metric of the 5G race – download speeds. 5G download speeds have often been touted by telcos as the only metric that’s important when it comes to choosing your provider, but that’s not always the case.

The brutal truth of the matter is that raw download speeds are good for the consumer up to a certain point, and are mostly felt the most when you’re downloading large files. Here’s what I mean – you will certainly feel the speed difference from a 25Mbps download speed to 150Mbps. But if you’re not using your connection to download large files, the jump from 150 Mbps to say, 300 Mbps or even 500 Mbps is meaningless for use cases like streaming and gaming. What’s more important is the stability and availability of the connection to the customer, especially in areas where they live and work. The fastest 5G connection is useless when it cuts out when you get to the office, right?

That’s why Smart’s recent Opensignal win, awarded to them during this year’s MWC, is such a huge win for the company. Opensignal’s Mobile Network Experience Report for 2023 shows us that Smart has invested in areas that matter to customers, specifically 5G download speeds, 5G upload speeds, download speed experience, and what I think is the most crucial – 5G coverage and 5G availability.

“Smart has the most prevalent and available 5G network if you’re looking for a signal, you’re going to see it in more places, and they’ve got the fastest 5G,” Rob Lerner, Regional Vice President of Sales for Opensignal said.

The more access you have to 5G, the more you can enjoy the benefit of it. And those speeds translate into capacity. It’s one of the big advantages of 5G – getting access to a less congested network. Being able to have a handset that accesses you more bandwidth is going to be a good outcome,” he added.

Moving forward, Smart is in a great position to compete with its two other telco rivals, DITO and Globe. With more and more people switching and using 5G handsets, Smart’s wide 5G coverage and more importantly, higher 5G availability will help them woo customers from the competition. After all, being able to access 5G in more places with your 5G-enabled smartphone that you bought specifically for that purpose is a big deal to many buyers. Everyone wants to see that 5G logo on their phone nowadays, and no one wants to stay stuck in the past that’s 4G.